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Uninsured Americans turn to mobile clinics

Millions lack money for care

By Gabriella Boston (Contact) | Tuesday, October 14, 2008

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'08 ISSUES:

Imagine having daily debilitating dizziness, near-blinding blurred vision and horrendous headaches - and no remedy.

Kim Fannon, 43, a single mother in the economically depressed town of Coeburn in Southwestern Virginia, doesn't have to imagine. That was her reality for four long years.

"I was in bad shape, but I didn't know how bad," said Ms. Fannon, who subsisted with the help of the federal program Medicaid.

Ms. Fannon got relief - and a scary diagnosis - when she visited a free mobile medical clinic called RAM (Remote Area Medical) a few months ago at the nearby Wise County Fairgrounds.

And she wasn't alone.

Nearly 2,700 other patients (many who camped out for days) came to the three-day clinic in a scene reminiscent of Walker Evans' famous photos taken during the Great Depression: Haggard faces that projected desperation - and resignation.

"I came in to check my eyes and get glasses and was sent for a CAT scan immediately," Ms. Fannon said.

"It turned out I had one large brain tumor as big as a lemon and four small ones," she said in a drawl that anchored her vowels in the back of her mouth and turned "lemon" into "limon." Fortunately, they were all benign.

Ms. Fannon's story is not unique. Roughly 45 million people in the United States are uninsured and 20 million more are underinsured, according to the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.